•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Bank Sulut, a regional bank for North Sulawesi and Gorontalo provinces, has postponed a planned initial public offering following a capital injection from Indonesian business tycoon Chairul Tanjung.

The Chairul conglomerate CT Corp bought a 24.9 percent stake in Bank Sulut for Rp 138 billion ($15 million), the lender’s president director, Jeffry Wurangian, said on Tuesday. He said the partnership was made official on Dec. 21.

“With the presence of CT Corp as our shareholder, I don’t think the IPO plan will happen this year,” Jeffry said, adding that the need to raise capital for the bank had lessened with Chairul’s investment.

In April last year, Jeffry said he expected Bank Sulut would become the second regional bank listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange, after Bank Jabar Banten. At the time, Jeffry said he hoped to raise Rp 300 billion from an IPO.

“We will discuss the strategy for 2012 with CT by the end of this month, including the IPO plan,” he said on Tuesday.

Jeffry said CT Corp helped increase the bank’s authorized capital from Rp 198 billion to about Rp 300 billion. The funds in turn boosted Bank Sulut’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) — a measure of lenders’ financial strength — to 12.9 percent from about 10 percent in 2011, he said.

“Our credit growth is steadily increasing,” Jeffry added. “We need this money to support our CAR measure.”

The central bank requires a CAR of at least 8 percent for the nation’s banks.

Lending at Bank Sulut grew 23 percent to Rp 3.7 trillion in 2011 from Rp 3 trillion in 2010, the president director said. Despite the growth, Jeffry said the bank’s ability to lend was squeezed last year due to Bank Indonesia’s CAR requirements.

“We practically did not give loans for about three months,” he said.